After literally years of rumors, Google has launched its much-talked-about e-commerce payment system, Google Checkout. The idea is simple: Google holds on to your credit card and shipping information, and when you find something you want to buy at a Google Checkout affiliate, completing the transaction is a one-step process. "The goal here is to make it be one nanosecond from the time the customer decides to buy to the time the transaction is complete and the product is on the way," says Google CEO Eric Schmidt in the New York Times' coverage of the launch. Google has a trick up its sleeve for luring in merchants, too: If you're a merchant who buys advertising from Google Posts with tag wallet
Google launches Google Checkout payment system
After literally years of rumors, Google has launched its much-talked-about e-commerce payment system, Google Checkout. The idea is simple: Google holds on to your credit card and shipping information, and when you find something you want to buy at a Google Checkout affiliate, completing the transaction is a one-step process. "The goal here is to make it be one nanosecond from the time the customer decides to buy to the time the transaction is complete and the product is on the way," says Google CEO Eric Schmidt in the New York Times' coverage of the launch. Google has a trick up its sleeve for luring in merchants, too: If you're a merchant who buys advertising from Google Google to launch GBuy, PayPal killer, on June 28
We've heard it referred to as Google Wallet, Google Checkout, Google Payments, and now GBuy. Google has long been rumored to be working on a payments system to rival eBay-owned PayPal, and according to Forbes--which calls it GBuy--Google will be launching its online payments system on June 28. Unlike Google Payments, which was integrated into Google Base, GBuy will be intended for merchants who have their own online store, but transactions will be completed through Google's servers. Forbes quotes analyst Jordan Rohan, who says this would allow Google to "capture e-commerce transaction data, driving more precise targeting in future searches." Rohan also believes Google will mark marchants who accept payment through GBuy as "trusted GBuy merchants" when they're listed in Google search results.Google readying Payments system
Google has been accepting payments from a
lot of people for awhile now, most notably AdSense advertisers and, more recently, people buying episodes of MacGyver
on Google Video. Last week they added payments to Google Base, allowing sellers to collect money from buyers through
Google, which some see as a shot directly across the bows of eBay and Craigslist. Nik Cubrilovic at TechCrunch has a review of the new payment system,
which he describes as "extremely simple" and "Google fast." Google is working up to it slowly, so
it's only available to a handful of sellers, but you can see some items for sale on Google Base by searching for "Xyzzy" (very
cheeky, guys). You can also read Google's announcements about the new system at the Official Google Blog and the Google Base Blog.
